Sunday, December 09, 2018

The Queensland Bushfires from Space

The United States is not the only country in the world to have suffered from record levels of wildfires this year. Last month hundreds of bushfires ravaged the Australian state of Queensland. The intensity and scale of the fires were worse than any fires previously experienced in the state.

ABC News has used satellite imagery to help show the massive areas of the state that have been affected by the fires. In From space, the ferocity of Queenland's bushfires is revealed satellite imagery from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel 2 satellite has been used to reveal the areas affected by the fires.

As you scroll through ABC's presentation the satellite imagery shows around 45,000 hectares of land which were scorched by the fires. The imagery also reveals the homes which were threatened by the fires. Most worryingly the satellite imagery shows how the bushfires penetrated the region's rainforests, an extraordinary development which has alarmed fire scientists. Rainforests usually do not burn so this development shows how extreme global warming is creating environmental conditions outside of our previous experience.